Tom Cholmondeley could walk free

Good news for Tom Cholmondeley, the Old Etonian Kenyan landowner currently on trial in Nairobi for shooting dead a poacher on his family’s 58,000-acre estate. In a surprise move on Thursday, a panel of civilian lay assessors - the Kenyan equivalent of a jury - delivered its non-binding judgment that he was not guilty of murder, a charge that carries, in theory, the death penalty.

He is not home and dry yet. The judge will now consider his own verdict, which is due to be delivered on April 30, and could still overturn the jury decision and find him guilty of murder or a lesser charge of manslaughter. But his lawyers said that yesterday’s decision was a big step towards an acquittal.

Cholmondeley, 40, the great-grandson of the third Baron Delamere, who was one of Kenya's most famous white settlers and the founder of the Happy Valley set, captured in the 1987 film White Mischief, was understandably pleased with the decision. As he left court, he smiled and said: “I feel great”.

As well he might. As reported here, his innocence is far from clear cut. He initially told police that he had accidentally killed the poacher, Robert Njoya, while trying to shoot dogs that were bearing down on himself and a friend. He changed his story when detectives charged him with murder. And it didn’t help that he had "previous". A year before his arrest in 2006, he was charged with killing a wildlife ranger. When this case was discreetly dropped on the instruction of Kenya's Attorney-General, it caused uproar. ·